But I don’t wish to turn these recollections into a recounting of supposedly amusing false adventures. The truth of the matter is that somehow I found kindred spirits who agreed to take these fetishes home, where they will occupy space that will deprive the children of air and room but provide the parents with the sense of being wiser, and the even falser and more useless feeling that they are the repositories of a knowledge that is, in any case, nothing more than a repeated testimony to human ignorance, or human ingenuousness.
My optimism led me to suppose that when I finished these lines, begun two weeks ago, the title would be fully justified; if the five hundred that appears there is replaced by twenty (a number that is beginning to shrink because several books have been mailed back to me), the title will be closer to the truth.
THE MAIDS
. . and also because of the flies, which were performing in my presence, and in their smaller concert, a music that was like the music in the summer house.
I love servants because they are unreal, because they leave, because they don’t like to obey, because they represent the last vestiges of free work and voluntary agreements and don’t have insurance or contracts, because like ghosts of an extinct race they come, they go into houses, they pry, they poke around, they look into the abysses of our miserable secrets by reading the coffee grounds or the wine glasses or the cigarette butts or simply by introducing their furtive eyes and avid hands into the closets, under the pillows, or by gathering up the pieces of torn paper and the echo of our complaints while they shake out and sweep up our constant misery and the remains of our hate, alone the entire morning singing triumphantly because they are welcomed as annunciations when they appear with the Nescafe or Kellogg’s carton filled with clothes and combs and tiny mirrors still covered with the dust of the last unreality they moved through, because then they say yes to everything and it seems that now we will never lack their protective hand, because finally they decide to leave as they came but with a deeper knowledge of all human beings, of understanding, and of solidarity, because they are the last representatives of Evil on earth and our wives don’t know what to do without Evil and cling to it and plead with it please not to leave this earth, because they are the only creatures who take revenge for the complaints of our wives simply by leaving, by gathering up again their brightly colored clothing, their things, their jars of third-class cream filled now with the first-class kind, dirtied a little after their unskillful thieveries. I’m leaving, they say, vigorously packing up their cardboard cartons. But why? Because (oh ineffable liberty). And there they go, malignant angels, in search of new adventures, a new house, a new cot, a new laundry room, a new Señora who cannot live without them and who loves them, planning a new life, denying any gratitude for how well they were treated when they were sick and were lovingly given their aspirin for fear that the next day they would not be able to wash the dishes, which is what really wears you out, preparing meals doesn’t wear you out. I love to see them come, ring, smile, walk in, say yes; but no, always refusing to face their Mary Poppins — Señora who will solve all their problems and those of their Papas, their older and younger brothers, one of whom raped her when he had the chance, for at night in bed you show them how to sing do-re-mi, do-re-mi until they are asleep with their thoughts sweetly turned to tomorrow’s dishes submerged in a new wave of suds from detergent fab-sol-la-si, and you caress their hair tenderly and quietly tiptoe away and turn out the light just before you leave the little maid’s room with its unreal outlines.
SOLEMNITY AND ECCENTRICITY
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
To the memory of Dr. Atl, eccentric
Not long ago a group of writers and artists in Mexico announced a campaign against solemnity, a campaign, of course, that like many lost campaigns, past and present, was won on the spot. Those who were not solemn (I hastened to place myself among them) laughed more than ever, wherever they were, pointing the finger at things and people. Those who thought themselves solemn declared with a forced smile that they were not, or at least were only when there was no need to be. Since there are no limits to the ambiguity and hypocrisy that surround us, the first group soon found a way to make their rivals believe they were members of the same party, while the second group made the first believe that they had believed them, that in fact it was all a joke and they belonged to their party. Soon no one knew or cared exactly which group he represented. Once again words or definitions had replaced facts, the essence of things was forgotten, and nothing changed. It was also forgotten that each man can defend his ideas jokingly or solemnly, but the ideas are what really matter (in the event he has any) and the manner in which he defends them may be less important. It is said that Christ never laughed and certainly never told a joke. He was extremely solemn. But his ideas cannot be destroyed, or are very difficult to destroy, simply by laughing at them, perhaps because no one follows them. It seems that the weakest part of the struggle against what was called solemnity was, as we shall see, not finding anything better to replace it.
If having won too quickly was one reason for losing this war, another was blithely imagining that the enemy could be defeated by humor, which is not necessarily the opposite of solemnity. The true humorist attempts to make people think, and sometimes even to make them laugh. But he has no illusions and knows he has failed. If he believes his cause will triumph, he immediately ceases to be a humorist. He triumphs only in defeat. The man who thinks he is wrong is usually right. But these are facile paradoxes.
All right, then. It is common knowledge that if a word is repeated rapidly and often, it soon loses all meaning. Perhaps this is what happened to the concept of solemnity. I see now that the war was really being waged against “false” solemnity, which, like every other false thing, is almost certainly imperishable and represents conformity to the established order, fear of ridicule, rejection of the unknown, respectful deference to custom, longing for security, lack of imagination.
Given this definition, what does it mean to be a “falsely” solemn person? There are solemn acts. To behave solemnly when you are not presiding over a solemn act does not mean you are solemn. It means you are a fool. If you are asked the time and you respond with solemnity that it is a quarter past three (and it is a quarter past three) you are not solemn. You are a fool. But there is no need to exaggerate. If you walk with solemnity and are not leading a solemn funeral procession, you are probably a solemn person; but at that moment you might also have been thinking up a good argument against false solemnity. One must not rely on appearances. As Batres Montúfar said:
If I put a reed in water
and see it bend in two